


M.I.A.

by Lennelle



Series: Little Green Soldiers [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adam was raised with Sam and Dean, Alternate Season/Series 03, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Sam Winchester, Gen, Sad Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27526408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lennelle/pseuds/Lennelle
Summary: It's been one year, two months and five days since Sam Winchester was killed.
Series: Little Green Soldiers [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533173
Comments: 29
Kudos: 52





	M.I.A.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I am back because I hate this stupid show so I'm gonna have fun writing my own versions (jk I love this show but these last few seasons got me Depressed because they're so bad and I want to forget they exist)
> 
> I thought I was done with spn fic forever tbh but after last weeks episode I decided to finish this WIP out of spite :)
> 
> Also this is not beta'ed so there will be mistakes but idgaf haha

One year, two months and five days after Sam Winchester was killed the sun rises bright and full, basking the rusting exoskeletons of old cars in a warm flood that brightens the metal to blinding. Dean doesn’t pay much attention to the weather, delightful as it may be. Locals will likely be packing up picnics to enjoy down at the nearest patch of grass, soaking up the rays and turning brown and red. Dean spends that morning stitching up a gash on his upper left arm. He’d been hunting most of the evening before and bled all over his empty passenger seat in his hurry to get to Bobby Singer’s house.

“When you gonna listen to me and get a partner?” Bobby tuts. Dean sticks the needle through his skin for the fourth time and grinds his teeth together. Bobby shakes his head at Dean’s lack of an answer and carries on flipping through whichever dusty old tome is plonked in front of him.

“You heard from your brother?” he asks, changing the subject.

Dean ties of the last stitch and swallows down a mouthful of whatever the hell was in the bottle Bobby gave him only an hour earlier. He hisses through his teeth and says, “Adam’s good. College suits him, I reckon. Last time we spoke he was wasted and decided to serenade me over the phone.”

Bobby chuffs, smothering a grin. Sam’s name is notably absent from the conversation and that aches far more than if Dean scratched those three letters into his arm. They haven’t spoken of Sam in a long time, not even when his twenty-fourth birthday came and went, snuffed out like a candle on a cake he’ll never have.

Dean thinks of Sam constantly, and that’s about as much as he can handle.

“He called me the other day,” Bobby says, yanking Dean out of his mournful thoughts. “Asked if he could stay here over the summer break.”

Dean frowns. “He never said anything about it to me.”

“Did you answer his calls?” Bobby retorts.

Dean casts his gaze to his feet, because the sight of his scuffed up, muddy boots is far nicer than the look Bobby’s giving him. The man can call him a goddamn idjit without even opening his mouth.

“I’ve been busy,” Dean replies.

“Busy acting like a damn fool, yeah,” Bobby agrees. “Look, I get it. Hunting full-time is a tough gig and there’s always something out there that needs killing. But, at least, have someone out there watching your back. I know a few guys who’d –“

Dean’s saved by his cellphone buzzing in his pocket. He reckons it might be Adam until he looks at the screen and sees an unknown number.

“Who’s this?” he answers.

“Dean?”

“Maybe. Depends who’s asking.”

“Dean, it’s me.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that.”

“It’s Sam.”

Dean freezes.

“What?”

“Dude, it’s Sam. Look, I don’t know where I am and –“

“If you call again, I’ll fucking hunt you down and kill you.”

“Dean, wait –“

Dean hangs up before they can say another word. Bobby is staring at him, a worried frown pulling at his brow.

“Who was that?” he asks.

Before Dean can answer, his phone rings again. His hands are shaking and it’s not just because of the device vibrating insistently in his grasp. He feels the urge to hurl it against the wall and watch it shatter, maybe he’d get some gratification from that, but instead he answers.

“Dean, please don’t hang up.”

Dean doesn’t say anything. He can’t say anything. It’s Sam’s voice, that soft yet deep timber, the subtle twang of a mish-mash of accents.

“Dean?”

“What do you want?”

“What?” There’s genuine surprise there. Hurt, even. This thing does a good imitation, there’s no denying. “Dean, I need you to come get me or, I don’t know. I don’t know where I am. I’m stuck out here in god-knows-where. I don’t have anything but a few quatres I found in my back pocket. The payphone’s gonna run out soon so can you-“

“This isn’t fucking funny,” Dean spits. “I swear I will gut you myself. Call this number again and you’ll wish you never crawled out the swamp you came from.”

This time he does hurl his phone across the room, although it doesn’t smash in the satisfying way he’d imagined. Bobby’s on his feet now, hovering and puzzled as can be.

“You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?” he asks.

Dean shakes his head, as if he can shake loose the horrible memory that was the last few minutes. “It, uh,” he tries, but his voice wobbles. He clears his throat and tries again. “It said it was Sam.”

He watches as that sinks in, Bobby’s eyes widening minutely before narrowing with venomous anger. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Shifter?”

“I don’t know,” Dean replies. “I don’t wanna know.”

“The thought of something using his name, _his voice_ ,” Bobby mutters. “Why now? What do you think it wanted?”

“I said I don’t wanna know,” Dean says. He takes another swig of alcohol which bites at his cheeks and sizzles down his throat. “I’m gonna get some shut-eye.”

He doesn’t head upstairs to one of the empty beds waiting to wrap him up warm, and he doesn’t crash on the couch right there in the living room. Dean gets up and hobbles out into the hot summer afternoon, the skin of his arm smarting beneath the fresh stitches. He finds Baby where he left her, pats her bonnet and climbs in behind the wheel. The blood on the upholstery has turned brown and flaked, and Dean stretches out across the bench, staring up at the ceiling, hand clenched. He thinks of the cell phone on the hardwood floor of Bobby’s study.

A sick part of him wants the cell to ring again, he wants to answer, hear Sam’s voice on the other end. The saner part of him wants to smash the thing beneath his feet until its just ground up plastic. More than that, he wants to shove something sharp into the soft middle of whatever is wearing his brother’s face.

Dean falls asleep, eventually, and he dreams of Sam’s feeble choke as blood filled his mouth, of the way his head drooped and rolled on his shoulder. He dreams of the moment Sam stopped breathing.

.

.

They get more calls over the next week, this time to a couple of Bobby’s phones. They hang up the second the thing says their names, and they try to push it to the back of their minds, distracting themselves with guns that need cleaning and books that need reading.

When Adam turns up, tall and brown and looking like an actual college student, they don’t say a word about the phone calls.

“Dean, you should come visit one time,” Adam suggests one night, over heated up chili and beer. He’s spent most of the evening blabbing their ears off about this class or that class, this party he went to, the dumb stuff his roommate got up to. Dean can only think of Sam, a few years younger and sitting alone in a dorm room with barely a duffel bag on his back, no one there to listen to stories like these.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean answers. “I’ll see.”

Bobby glares at him but Dean focuses on his still full plate of food. It’s then that the phone rings and Adam, closest to the door gets up to answer.

“Hello?”

“Adam, wait!” Dean’s on his feet, but it’s too late. Adam’s face drains white and his wide eyes turn to Dean.

“Sam?” Adam says into the receiver.

Dean marches over and grabs the phone, slamming it back down onto the cradle. Adam jumps, still pale and wide-eyed.

“That was Sam,” he says faintly.

“No, it wasn’t,” Dean replies firmly.

“But – “

“Sam is _gone_ , Adam,” Dean barks. “Just leave it, okay? It’s not him. It’s just something trying to mess with us.”

Adam stares at him, then over to the kitchen where Bobby is watching silently from the door. Adam is quiet, waiting for Bobby to say something, but no one says a word. Adam pushes past Dean and hurries up the stairs, the _click_ of the bedroom door closing behind him is more of a _crack_.

Bobby folds his arms over his chest. “Should have warned the kid,” he says.

Dean grinds his teeth. “You think?”

“If this keeps going on, we’ll have to do something about it.”

 _Something,_ Dean thinks, _could mean anything._ As angry as he is, he doesn’t think he’d be able to kill something with Sam’s face. He drowns his thoughts in beer, then some whiskey, and passes out on the couch.

.

.

Baby needs some work done and Dean spends the next morning pretending he doesn’t have a headache as he leans over the Impala’s open bonnet. She grumbles when he tests out the engine as if she’s protesting. After what he put her through the other night, Dean doesn’t blame her. He carefully scrapes his blood from the leather inside, polishes her gleaming black skin. It’s just after he peels his shirt from his sweaty torso, his t-shirt beneath drenched, that he notices a figure in the distance.

He squints against the sun as the stranger lumbers closer. They’re limping, Dean notices, and tall.

It’s Sam.

The wrench in his hand drops to the ground with a clatter and Dean freezes. Sam, the _thing_ with Sam’s face sees him and breaks out into a grin. He limps closer, shaggy-haired, skinny, and pale with dust. He looks a mess.

“Dean,” he says, breathless with relief.

Dean curls up his fist and swings it right into the thing’s face.


End file.
